Hockey
Hockey is any of a family of sports in which two teams compete by trying to maneuver a hard, round ball or a puck into the opponent's goal, past the goalkeeper or goaltender (often abbreviated goalie), using a stick.
The major forms of hockey are:
- Field hockey, played with a ball on grass or (more frequently nowadays) sand or water-based astroturf.
- Ice hockey, played on ice with a small, 6-oz (168-gram) rubber disc called a puck.
- Rink hockey, played indoors with a ball or puck.
Field hockey and ice hockey both developed independently from an earlier form of the game. The dominant form in any region is usually referred to simply as hockey, with the less popular forms given more detailed names. Thus hockey on its own refers to field hockey in most countries, but to ice hockey in countries such as Canada, Russia, the USA and Scandinavia where ice hockey is more commonly played. In southern European countries (such as Spain, Portugal and Italy) and certain South American countries especially Brazil and Argentina), hockey designates rink hockey. The Olympic Movement refers to "hockey" as a summer sport and "ice hockey" as a winter sport.
Field hockey sticks are smaller than ice hockey sticks. Modern ones have a hooked blade, whereas ice hockey sticks have a long blade that can lie flat on the playing surface when the stick is held upright. Rink hockey sticks have a curled "L" shape, and are about the same size of those in field hockey.
Other games derived from hockey or its predecessors include the following:
- Bandy is played with a ball on a football-sized ice arena, typically outdoors. It is in many ways field hockey played on ice.
- Floorball is played in sport halls.
- Roller hockey is a variant of ice hockey that is played on concrete or asphalt using inline roller skates. Roller hockey is also known as rink hockey and inline hockey.
- Shinny is an informal version of ice hockey.
- Air hockey and table hockey are played on tables indoors.
- Underwater hockey is played on the bottom of a swimming pool.
- Street hockey is a version of ice hockey played (most typically) on residential streets with or without inline skates, on bare pavement. Games are usually informal with no referee and no set teams. Because the game is played in the middle of the road, it is often interrupted by traffic, at which point someone will yell "car" and players stand to the side of the road to allow the vehicle to pass.
- Ringette is an ice hockey variant that was designed for female players; it uses a straight stick and a rubber ring in place of a puck.
- Broomball is played on an ice hockey rink, but with a ball instead of a puck and a "broom" (actually a stick with a small plastic implement on the end) in place of the ice hockey stick.